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1865 - 13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery with the year of 1865. It passed the Senate on April 8th 1864, the House on January 31st 1865, and on February 1st the proposed amendment was submitted to state legislatures by President Lincoln. It was finally ratified on December 6th. -
1868 - 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to anyone born and naturalized in the United States of America. On June 16th 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposed the 14th amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states. On July 28th 1868, the 14th amendment was declared a law. -
1870 - 15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment allows African American men the right to vote. After African American men were out of slavery and granted citizenship, they started to fight for their right to vote. The proposed amendment was passed Congress on February 26th 1869 and ratified on February 3rd 1870. -
1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was an 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that confirm the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The original case an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for blacks. -
1948 - Truman desegregates the Military
Truman desegregates the Military also known as Executive Order 9981 that abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
1954 - Brown v. Board of Ed.
Brown v. Board of Education was a 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Ed. was one of the keystones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
1955 - Rosa Parks/Montgomery Bus Boycott
In Montgomery, Alabama during 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. -
1957 - Little Rock Crisis
In September 1957, The Little Rock Nine (a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas) Used their attendance at the school as a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools. -
1960 - Sit-in Movement
The Greensboro sit-ins at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and opened a national awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation. -
1961 - Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Courts. -
1962 - James Meredith and Ole Miss
James Meredith, an African American man, attempted to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962. Chaos soon broke out on the Ole Miss campus -
1963 - March on Washington/"I Have a Dream" speech
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by black men and women. -
1964 - Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive sponsored by civil rights organizations including the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Aimed at increasing black voter registration in Mississippi. -
1964 - Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. -
1965 - Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery. -
1965 - Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
